짬뽕 - Jjamppong

 

Korean Spicy Seafood Noodle Soup.

I got the recipe for this from maangchi.com.  She has great recipes.  I made a spicy and non-spicy version.  I was in the mood to eat this and have made it one time before.  This time I didn't have all the ingredients, but it turned out just as good.

Here's how I made it.  (I change the recipe up a little from how the recipe is on maangchi.com.)

Ingredients

8 cups of water.
1-2 TBSP of fish sauce
1/2 onion chopped
4 inches by 4 of dried kelp
1 TBSP crushed garlic
2 TBSP Korean red pepper flakes
1 1/2 TBSP canola oil
2 carrots chopped
1 small zucchini chopped
10-15 medium sized shrimp
Spaghetti like noodles (Korean noodles)

First I cook the noodles.  Because it is sometimes hard to come by the korean noodles for the soup or hard to keep stocked up in my home for when I'm in the mood for this dish I just use thin spaghetti noodles.  The ones I used were wheat.  Once the noodles are done I set them aside unto I finish the soup.

To make the soup I put the 8 cups water in a pot and added the dried kelp.  I broke the kelp up into bit size pieces because I don't take the kelp out after boiling it and actually leave it in to eat.  I put the chopped onion in and the fish sauce and bring it to a boil.  Then I mix the red pepper flakes with the oil and let it sit while I chop the carrots. Once it's boiling I add the carrots and the red pepper flakes.  Then I chop the zucchini and put that in.  And lastly put in the shrimp.  After a minute or 2 the shrimp are cooked (when they turn pink) and it's ready to eat.  I put some in a bowl and then put the noodles on top.

Very simple and very tasty!

The non-spicy version is exactly the same as the first, but I left out the red pepper flakes and oil.  Tastes great too and is perfect for the kids.

The time before when I made this I used cabbage, green onions, mushrooms as well as all the other ingredients.

The maangchi website has good pictures for some of the Korean ingredients.  I linked those items under my ingredients list.   I've found that all Korean red pepper flakes that are available locally are not very tasty nor spicy.  If you look at the package you will probably see that it comes from China.  The ones from China don't have the right flavor.  So I looked on amazon.com for some and made sure that they came from Korea and NOT China.  I ordered a great one that's very spicy!